Lesson 14: God did not create a meaningless world.
When A Course in Miracles teacher and author Marianne Williamson was running for president of the United States, she met controversy early on from detractors who alleged that she harmed men living with HIV and AIDS by insisting on the Course principal that the disease was not “real.”
Never mind that Williamson was an early leader in helping gay men who were afflicted by the disease and founded Project Angel Food, in part, to help feed those in need. That mission alone should have been proof enough that Williamson found the crisis to be “real” enough to take action and help those who were suffering. But, it’s a common misunderstanding of the Course which springs from today’s lesson that directs us to think about the horrors we perceive in this world and say, “God did not create that war/airplane crash/disaster, and so it is not real.”
What this lesson is getting at is that here in this ego world, perception really is reality. My stepfather succumbed to dementia before my mother did and one day, as we were preparing to take them out to dinner, my stepfather kept insisting that they needed to pick up their cars from the mechanic. They had been living in assisted housing for several years and did not own cars anymore.
“Jack,” my mother said in exasperation, “we don’t own any cars. We don’t drive anymore.”
My stepfather, who was a wise man, stopped talking about the cars he knew good and darn well they needed to get from the mechanic and dutifully followed us to the car. In the back seat he leaned over to my then-partner and told her in an ominous tone, “I think Candace’s mother has Alzheimer’s.”
He was truly concerned. He loved my mother and wanted her to be well. In our perception, of course, he was the one suffering memory loss, because we all knew mother was right. They didn’t own any cars.
Saying lines like, “God did not create that war, and so it is not real,” doesn’t negate the suffering of war and the reality that wars are happening and people are needlessly dying. It’s simply trying to put the responsibility where it belongs – on the collective egos that have created the war in the first place. God did not create the wars we fight – we do. We may declare we’re on God’s side, but in Reality, with a capital “R,” God doesn’t have a dog in the fight. It’s all on us. We create the suffering we see. We create the diseases we contract, by polluting our air and water and food supply. We are responsible for any and all suffering in this world.
What this lesson is trying to teach us then, is that since we created the world’s suffering, we are responsible for ending it. We have misused our creative power and have paid a heavy price for it. In the realm of the Real, though, all of what we created is simply a call for Love – and God continuously offers us a chance to choose again and create a world without suffering, injustice or hunger. That world would lead to our enlightenment, our unity, and an end to the separation that keeps this ego world in business.
It’s easier, then, to simply dismiss this lesson as so much New Age poppycock, because it’s difficult for us to step outside of the ego’s world – to loosen its grip on us – by changing our perception. We’d rather think others have the illness of ego than ever admit we are suffering as well.
In Chapter 2 of the text, the Course says:
“You do not have to continue to believe what is not true unless you choose to do so. All that can literally disappear in the twinkling of an eye because it is merely a misperception. What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. Yet the Bible says that a deep sleep fell upon Adam, and nowhere is there reference to his waking up.”
We are all still in Adam’s dream – and in this state, just as in any other dream we may be having – what happens isn’t real. When we awaken from the dream, we find the world as we left it. Similarly, when we awaken from this dream of a world, we will find heaven has been here with us all along – but we were too wrapped up in the ego’s dream world to see it clearly.
Today’s lesson helps us begin to see perception is reality for all of us – and that’s why a miracle is a change in perception. It is a moment of enlightenment when we see that what we create in this world is not real. What we create has real consequences while we’re here, which is why we should attend to the suffering we create for one another. But, ultimately, none of this is real. We live in a world of dreams. It’s one we’ve chosen to be in so we can learn the true meaning of Love and become channels of that Love.
The poet Hafiz makes the point this way:
God is applauding our every act, but
He hides that reality from most, until
we can understand more about real
Love.
Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels
I wrote a song based on these ideas called Dreamer Awake. Enjoy.
Great comment on today’s lesson. Thank you, Candace!
Well done.